d and called a comrade. At the mention of a droschke,
however, Maurice all but wept anew with ire and emotion: this was his
dearest friend, the friend of his bosom; he was ready at any time to
stake his life for him, and now he was not to be allowed even to see
him home.

A difficulty arose about Maurice's hat: he was convinced that the one
the waiter jammed so rudely on his head did not belong to him; and it
seemed as if nothing in the world had ever mattered so much to him as
now getting back his own hat. But he had not sufficient fluency to
explain all he meant; before he had finished, the man lost patience;
and suddenly, without any transition, the three of them were in the
street. The raw night air gave them a shock; they gasped and choked a
little. Then the wall of a house rose appositely and met them. They
leaned against it, and Maurice threw the hat from him and trampled on
it, chuckling at the idea that he was revenging himself on the waiter.

It was a journey of difficulties; not only was he unclear what locality
they were in, but innumerable lifeless things confronted them and
formed obstacles to their progress; they had to charge an
advertisement-column two or three times before they could get round it.
Maurice grew excessively angry, especially with Dove. For while Heinz
let himself be lugged this way and that, Dove, grown loud and wilful,
had ideas of his own, and, in addition to this, sang the whole time
with drunken gravity:

Sez the ragman, to the bagman,
I'll do yees no harm.

"Stop it, you oaf!" cried Maurice, goaded to desperation. "You beastly,
blathering, drunken idiot!"

Then, for a street-length, he himself lapsed into semi-consciousness,
and when he wakened, Dove was gone. He chuckled anew at the thought
that somehow or other they had managed to outwit him.

His intention had been to make for home, but the door before which they
ultimately found themselves was Krafft's. Maurice propped his companion
against the wall, and searched his own pockets for a key. When he had
found one, he could not find the door, and when this was secured, the
key would not fit. The perspiration stood out on his forehead; he tried
again and again, thought the keyhole was dodging him, and asserted the
fact so violently that a window in the first storey was opened and a
head thrust out.

"What in the name of Heaven are you doing down there?" it cried. "You
drunken SCHWEIN, can't you see the door's open?"